I decided to give myself a birthday present and take my self to Disney California Adventure. I went a couple of days before my birthday because it was cheaper and less crowded.
Upon arrival at airport parking, I took a picture so I would be able to find my car at the end of the day. However, on returen, I told the shuttle driver D40 instead of D41 and disembarked in the wrong area. It was quite late evening and rather disconcerting. Fortunately, he came back around, picked me up and took me to the correct area.
I missed my morning flight! Everything at the airport took a little longer than I had anticipated, especially security, where my back brace threw things in a slight tizzy. I am pretty sure that I was at the gate before departure time, but the plane was gone. A couple was just ahead of me with the same plan for the day - fly down and back on the same day for a day at Disneyland - and the same problem, they had barely missed our flight. Fortunately, there was another flight two hours later. It could have been worse.
As soon as I made it to Disney California Adventureland, I checked the Disney app to see how long the wait was for one of my favorite and one of the most popular rides - Radiator Springs Racers. IT WAS CLOSED. Things were not starting off ideally. I walked around a bit, determined to enjoy the day regardless. I decided to have a Mickey Bar It was a little hard to find a vendor, surprisingly. And then I learned the price had gone up fron $5 tp $5.25. Which was a little disappointing and also a little incovenient as I was not carrying a coin purse. I had gotten mysefl some fives and Miriam gave me some ones to buy a Mickey Bar, so it was not disasterous. The Mickey Bar was delicious as always, although I did get chocolate on my shirt. Things picked up from there.
I wandered about just looking around which was something I wanted to do. Before, with family, we scurreied from ride to ride to attraction getting in as much as possible, but not really looking at things as we passed. I kept my eyes on the leader trying not to get left or lost. This day was a take it as it comes, go with the flow day. I went on the Bakery Tour, learned about the Mother Dough, and enjoyed samples of the sour dough bread.
I briefly popped into Ghiradeli's. They did not give samples (they used to), but it smelled wonderful.
A little more just wandering around and enjoying the sights.
Then I saw on the app that Radiator Springs Racers was open again! It had a fairly long wait time, but! I went to the single rider line which there was basically no one in, and as I was riding a scooter as well, I got on very quickly. At the mobility dock, there was a lady with a couple of service dogs. She said the dogs enjoy going to the park and they do rider switch like people do with children too small for rides. Her partner got off and we got in our race car together. Sonja was fun. We laughed and raised our arms and jeered at the car we were racing. We won!
After we left the racers, I saw her outside and got her picture
The tired pumpkins on display in the line for Luigi's Honkin' Haul-o ween tickled my fancy.
Luigi's Honkin' Haul-0-ween, as the dancing cars are called during this season, is another one of my favorites.
Stopped by cone village briefly, but bought no cones.
Enjoyed Monster's Inc, Mike & Sully to the Rescue
You will be relieved to know that i did not get pictures of some of the rides or everything I saw and enjoyed. Some are not safe or conducive to photography. Also, I began to be slightly concerned about running down the phone's battery.
I didn't really do anything in Avenger's Campus, but I walked through there more than once. I like the music! and I did see "Thor" and "Loki"!
I can't remember what the clock is from, but it's cute.
Minnie Mouse!
Turtle Talk with Crush is totally awesome, dude!
Animator's Academy is also awesome. Even if you are not very artistic, somehow, they help you make a pretty decent drawing. My class was Vampire Mickey.
It seemed like a good idea to ride Grizzly River Rapids in the heat of the aftenoon. A good many people agreed. The line extended out of the ride area, around the perimieter and almost out of Grizzly Peak park lands. But it was mostly shady and so pretty. No pictures from the ride, itself. It's wet and wild. No place for phones or regular cameras.
Wild woodland creature spotted while in line for Grizzly Peak River Raft. Chip, right?
Between somewhere and somewhere else, my path was temporialy blocked by a short parade, which had to stop and turn around so the toys could go help Mr. Potato Head look for his missing parts and features.
Pluto was one of the many characters to be seen out interacting (from a safe social distance) with park guests.
A lovely, fun, relaxing day, came to an end as it was time to return my scooter and meet my shuttle driver to return to the airport. I sure did not want to be late and miss my flight home!
Good bye to the Storytellers.
The day trip cost me more than I had originally anticipated (particularly as I was not good at shopping for a deal on air fare) and I certainly cannot do something like that often, but it was wonderful and healing. I enjoy going with family, but I thoroughly enjouyed my solo trip also.
I will tell you that taking off for the day alone felt so good! I didn't worry about taking care of or pleasing anyone. It was a wonderful break. I am going to try to find more alone time away from everyone and everything at home every now and then. It is going to have to be a lot less expensive! I need to find a nice, free (or very inexpensive) escape in or near Sacramento where I can spend a few hours. Maybe just a book at a park. But I think I may need more than an hour or two, time to decompress, relax and recharge.
